


Sayonara

by busaikko



Category: Nobuta wo Produce
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, Multi, Other, Post-Canon, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Variations on the canon ending told in drabbles. (Warning for suicide for the last chapter only, the others are fluffy.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nobuko: Shuji leaves, Akira follows

Kotani Nobuko stops being Nobuta, becomes Koko-chan until she graduates, becomes Kotani-kun in college kendo club. She writes cell-phone novellas about lost people who learn to live that way. She meets a sempai's friend who recommends Nobuko's books to her, not knowing who she is. Nobuko never tells. They rent a house and fill it with books and dolls.

She writes to Shuji one week, Akira the next; they write back, asking about her happiness. She never did learn to smile, she tells them, but she learned to be happy. She sends them pictures: house, cats, lover, garden, books, Nobuta.


	2. Shuji: Nobuko leaves, Akira follows

"She needs me," Akira says, and follows the Kotanis cross-country to Fukuoka. He sends Shuji postcards, coffee-stained, about Nobuta running on the beach, climbing a caldera, holding a red pottery bowl between her hands like it's a living thing. Shuji's glad Nobuta's not alone. He spends time hanging out with Koji and teaches himself cross-stitch (because he's always waned to learn) and songs he actually likes on the guitar. He sits the entrance exam for the science department of a mediocre university; he gets an embarrassingly stupid mountain of flowers from Akira after Shuji calls to say he got in.

* * *

Sophomore year, Shuji goes with Nobuta and Akira up to Tateyama to see the stars. Nobuta hugs him at the station, and over breakfast while Akira's still sleeping in their room she asks if Shuji's gay.

"I don't think so," he says. "I'm still not _me_ enough for a relationship."

Nobuta forces a smile, but drops it quickly. "Me, too," she says, and nods in a solidarity that makes something inside Shuji relax. When Akira appears he asks them, "Are you dating now?"

"We were waiting for you," Nobuta replies darkly, and lets him make of that what he will.


	3. Akira: Nobuko leaves, Shuji follows

"Go, go," Akira says, and gives Shuji an envelope fat with cash, noshi drawn on in highlighter pen. "You have to go, I already moved my stuff into your room."

Shuji calls when he arrives, and his father yells at him. Koji refuses to speak to him; Akira asks if Nobuta smiled when she saw him. Shuji says yes.

Shuji rents an apartment and works in a bicycle shop after school and wins a prize for making a dress that Nobuta modeled, she tells him. In the newspaper clipping, she looks pretty; Shuji's taller and looks weird without dyed hair.

* * *

Akira studies business, spends a year abroad in London, buys a shiny red car, dates some of the people he's supposed to, sleeps with the people he wants to, and goes to see all of Nobuta and Shuji's gallery shows. He works an average of four hours overtime every day for a year and a half, threatens to quit his job, and gets sent off to a branch office in China. He learns to speak Chinese and falls in love and for the first time in his life thinks about giving up the money and standing on his own feet.

* * *

At his wedding Akira gets elbowed by Shuji every time he slips up and calls Nobuko _Nobuta_. The ceremony's in Hawaii, only friends and family, and Akira's dad's finally talking to him again; Akira's glad, he wants to grow old without too many regrets.

He says his trilingual vows and then there's kissing, and Shuji has the rings despite swearing he'd toss them out the window if Akira kept calling him a bridesmaid. Nobuta dances with Akira's father, and Shuji makes a ridiculously earnest toast, and everyone kicks off their shoes to walk on the beach, under the setting sun.


	4. Shuji leaves, no one follows

Shuji leaves with his family, and Nobuta and Akira pretend to date until graduation. They hold hands sometimes, but Shuji's absence is worse than a ghost, Akira thinks. He and Nobuta go see Shuji over spring vacation, staying in an　ostentatious bubble-era hotel. They wear yukata to the game center, soak in every hot spring bath. In the summer Shuji comes to stay at Akira's, and so does Nobuta, and they open all the windows and fan each other. At night there are fireworks, and one night after Shuji leaves Akira tells Nobuta he loves her and they should be together forever.

* * *

By winter Akira realizes he's made a mistake, but he still takes Nobuta skiing in Nagano and gives her a Christmas present that he hopes doesn't seem desperate. He knows it's over when Nobuta frowns and says, "Shuji doesn't write back anymore."

Akira tells her Shuji's basically a lonely person who doesn't understand real friends. Trying to make Shuji respond gives them something to do besides think about being in the wrong sort of love, but they never say out loud that they're trying to produce him. It wouldn't work anyway, Akira thinks, not with the distance widening between them.

* * *

When Shuji kills himself, azaleas are blooming, and Akira doesn't even find out until a week after the cremation. Nobuta tells him. She looks like she hopes Akira can fix the world.

He almost asks her to marry him, but remembers Shuji's silence and says nothing. He tries to dream about Shuji, but can't. Nobuta starts wearing make-up and sensible heels. She takes him cherry-blossom viewing and says, "You'll never know why. Shuji took the answer with him."

Akira starts to say _I hate him_ but says _I miss him_ instead. Nobuta puts her hand around his and holds on.


End file.
